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Monday, 2 February 2009

List three: toys we love!

To be honest, list two was actually a list of toys T loves. We don't have the room to keep anything he's not enamoured with, so if it's ignored, repeatedly discarded after a couple of minutes play or flung on the floor in disgust (such a charmer, my son) it goes off to one of

eBay (money to be used to buy something more suitable)Grandma's loft (if I can stand the thought of any future babies playing with it, most noisy electronic things fail this test)the charity shop

I think I made myfeelings on the list two toys perfectly clear. I'm not a total killjoy though, there are toys which both T and I love, and in the interests of fairness, I'm going to share them.

1) The mysterious magnetic ball

Procured from the local Help The Aged shop for £2, this has been one of T's most-loved toys. It's a (heavy) ball made of wooden cones which attach to a central shape using magnets. He rolls the ball on the wooden floor, pulls off the pieces, carries the pieces around, sticks the pieces back on. Hours and hours of fun! I wish I knew who made this, or where you can buy one as it's the sort of thing I'd love to give as a gift to the children of friends, but I've never seen anything similar.

2) Baby Einstein Animal Discovery Cards These are a bit Meet The Fockers, but I promise we haven't been hot-housing T since an early age. He adores these cards, they're strong enough to withstand being carried around/sat on/half-heartedly chewed, and loves me to go through the animal photos and make the appropriate noises with him.

He can now do duck, cow, monkey (complete with under arm scratching, which might just be a covert way of giving his pox a good itch), lion and tiger (raaaaaaah!), cat, dog, bear (well, he says bear) oh, and frog. We take these cards everywhere with us, they're perfect restaurant/waiting room distractions.

3) Sticklebricks Actually, I'm not sure if I love these. Yes they're fun to squish together and pull apart, but finding one this morning with my bare feet on the living room carpet (ouch!) has made me reconsider a little.

4) Ikea toy pans Ours are slightly different, but the gist is the same. I bought these after T showed himself to be obsessed with the metal treasure basket at the local Children's Centre. They are good for putting things in, using as an impromptu drum kit and just generally clattering about with. They also prevent him opening the kitchen drawers and getting my real pans out!

5) Alphabet frieze I know this is probably not strictly a toy, but I bought it this week and stuck it up in the corner of the living room which holds T's larger toys (buggy/annoying garage/activity cube) at toddler height and he's just fascinated by it. We walk along, pointing at the pictures. He says 'what's that?' (woss da?) and I tell him. He's most fascinated by the picture of a queen for some reason, and keeps going over to touch her face and crown.

As a sub-list, toys that almost made it onto the main list, but not quiteClick Clack Track The cars get lost too easily, which frustrates me, although we love playing with it togetherSoft Ikea football. T carries it around (obviously the football matches) we've taken him to haven't yet sunk inCrayon Rocks Touchy feely to colour with, T can make much better marks with these than traditional triangle grip crayons/pencils. He's slightly too keen on eating them though!

I haven't included books on this list. I'd need a giant list for books, or maybe a list of lists

board booksbooks to be read as bedtime storiespop up bookstouchy feely books